Amaranthine Explosives
by Shiroi Hoshi
Summary: Sasori had never experienced real happiness, but right now he knew what it was—how it felt like. He knew it so surely it was etched into his very soul. He knew it as surely as he knew how he didn't mind spending the rest of his eternity with a potential explosive. There is no gap wider than the one between evanescence and perpetuity, but even that can't stop them. SASODEI ONESHOT


**Hello! I really love this pair****ing so much... and yes, another oneshot on these two (: they are so good together, really. How's it? Please review, all right! My last story on fanfiction until my exams are over, by which i will never be able to upload again because my results will suck so much my computer will get confiscated.. Anyway, enjoy while you can~**

**p.s. Amaranthine: eternal; forever; endless  
**

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_I'm taking all you down with me. Explosives duct taped to my spine; nothing's going to change my mind. _

_–__**Having A Blast**_

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Sasori didn't know why, but the kid with long yellow hair at the playground fascinated him. Firstly, it wasn't just his unusual hair color. Sasori didn't mind; his hair was red anyways, so he wouldn't judge. But most prominently, what attracted Sasori's attention, were the colorful lumps of shapeless clay surrounding the boy in a miniature Stonehenge.

And the boy's face, it lit up with every touch of his fingertips to the soft material. Sasori was fascinated; he was fascinated by the undying light in the boy's sapphire blue eyes. The wind brought stray blonde strands into his face, but absorbed in his work, the boy didn't brush them away.

Sasori toddled over to the boy and plopped himself next to him, setting his new puppet carefully on the ground.

The boy looked up, blinking in surprise, before his face broke into the widest smile Sasori had ever seen. So bewitched by the smile, Sasori squinted at the halo of sunlight above the boy's head. "Hello!" the boy said, thrusting out a hand sticky with orange clay, and slipped his fingers with Sasori's. "My name is Deidara, un! What's yours?"

Sasori was stunned at his friendliness. "S…Sasori," he muttered. He didn't like talking to people, and he still didn't know what had possessed him to go sit so close to this stranger who messed around with play-doh.

"Hello Sasori!" Deidara ran his caked fingers through Sasori's hair, and the redhead froze. "I like your hair, un! It's not brown or black. It's a pretty color!"

"There's play-doh all over your hand!" Sasori said, his expression a cross between horror and disbelief.

"It's not _play-doh_," Deidara huffed. "It's called _clay_. It's what professional sculptors use!"

"Uh, okay." Sasori tried to detach the pieces of clay that were quickly hardening in his hair, messing the already messy hair. He picked up his puppet. "Want to play?"

Deidara wrinkled his nose. "No, un. Why do you play with _dolls_?"

Sasori got mad. "Are you _stupid_? This is _not_ a doll!"

That was the awkwardness that sparked their beginning.

High school marked the real start of their friendship. They met again during freshman registration. Recognition flashed in Deidara's eyes when he spotted Sasori. No, he didn't spot _Sasori_ exactly. Deidara's attention was drawn almost immediately to Sasori's hair. The same red hair he had run his fingers—and the clay on them—through. Something resembling nostalgia hit Deidara like a tsunami. Like waves crashing against a steep shore.

The redhead was sitting right at the back of the class, his earth brown eyes fixed to the wall as the teacher did roll call. Deidara stood in the doorway, peering into the room, blatantly staring at Sasori, wondering if he really was that boy from preschool. Wondering, wondering, if Sasori remembered him?

"Ito?"

Deidara turned at the sound of his name. "Un?"

"Don't just stand there! You're already late as it is."

Deidara took two awkward steps into the classroom with everyone's eyes on him.

"Just take that seat beside Akasuna."

He shuffled over to the empty desk beside and Sasori and sat down.

Deidara sneaked a glance at Sasori, but the redhead wasn't aware. He was still looking at the wall. Deciding to give up, Deidara started to turn away. And Sasori turned around.

In that split second— a moment as transient as a blink, like a lightning bolt in the sky, a wink of an eye, the mud red intensity collided with a hazy blue gaze. And recognition. It flared in Sasori's eyes. Deidara could catch the surprise and maybe, the slightest hint of delight in those familiar pools of brown warmth.

Deidara risked a smile. "Been a long time, un, puppet boy."

He noticed that Sasori still lacked emotions, but he didn't miss the slight smirk on the other boy's lips. "Same goes, little brat."

"Excuse _me_, un," Deidara growled. Sasori had started calling him a brat ever since they were little. His occasional whining for food and that he was bored drove Sasori to the edge of sanity, and one day, in his irritation, Sasori had snapped "shut up, brat" to him, and the name stayed.

He remembered the time they were ten, in middle school, when Sasori had to move to the neighboring town to stay with his grandmother, because his parents hadn't survived a car crash. He remembered the loneliness searing him as he spent every solitary day moulding clay figures after clay figures, painting them red, blue, yellow, orange. And every other bright color.

A faint blush dusted his cheeks when he remembered the little Sasori figurine he had made on a day where he particularly missed the redhead. It was by far the best figurine he had ever made. He had gotten Sasori's hair and expression perfectly. But all he could do was to hope Sasori never saw it. He would die of embarrassment.

Sasori just continued smirking. "What's wrong, _brat_?"

"Can you stop that?" Deidara glared at him. "It's our first reunion in five years, un, and you're already acting like a real idiot."

"Idiot?" Sasori pondered the noun. "What happened to _Danna_?"

He hadn't forgotten. Deidara used to call him "Danna"; because Sasori calling him a brat ticked him off, and by calling the redhead "Danna" it made Sasori seem more spoilt than "brat" could portray.

"Why?" Deidara grinned. "Missed being my master, un?" the words left his lips just a second too early, before blonde even registered what he was saying. And when he did, he clapped a hand over his mouth, slightly flustered.

"Maybe." Sasori watched him with a leveled gaze that Deidara felt bore holes through him like fire and paper. "I missed calling you a brat."

Deidara's heart fluttered in a way he didn't understand. _Missed calling me a brat? Does that mean he missed me?_

"Is that so—"

"Ito!"

Deidara flinched at the sharpness in the teacher's tone, and settled it by making a face at Sasori, who raised an eyebrow and faced the front.

It didn't take long for Deidara to figure out that Sasori was a silent prodigy. He did his sums in record time, but never raised his hand when the teacher asked for volunteers to scrawl messy workings on the board.

Deidara, on the other hand, was hopeless at anything involving numbers. He scribbled his workings without knowing what he was doing, and finally decided to copy the answers off the board into his book. Screw Math.

"Ito, could you come write you answer on the board?"

Deidara froze. No way. No way in _hell_. Was he really that unlucky? He stood up with an internal groan. He felt the pressure in his head, forcing him down towards the ground, trying to steal his height and flatten him.

"Hurry up and _go_, brat."

Deidara felt a book slip into his hand and he glanced down at it. A page full of neat workings. Eyes widening, he gave Sasori a wild stare.

"_Go_," Sasori hissed.

Deidara dragged his feet to the board and transferred the workings onto the board.

Of course, they were flawless; not missing even one step.

Sasori gave him a faint half smile.

And then came senior year— The time of your student life where you spend every waking moment submitting your college applications.

Deidara whacked the stoic boy over the head with his history book and sat down next to him. "So, where are you planning to go?"

Sasori had his jaw resting on his palm. He slid his eyes to the side and Deidara felt a shudder go down his spine when the redhead made eye contact. Sometime over the three years, the blonde had fallen in love with the enigmatic boy who had insisted that art was immortality.

Both of them were top art students, but their beliefs were juxtaposition. According to Sasori, art was something that could withstand the storms and rage of time, something that could endure the winters and summers and rain and harm, something that would never die.

Deidara begged to differ. Art, was something that lasted for a maximum of two seconds, like a detonated bomb. Something with wild, blinding colors, that is here one time and gone the next. Something that cannot be recreated. Something that made an impression; an impression so great that it would, then, be eternally engraved into one's memory.

Despite their obvious differences, they were like kerosene and fire.

"I don't know," Sasori said, his low monotone washing over Deidara's ears, making him shiver involuntarily.

"Oh." Deidara said.

Sasori flicked all of his attention over to the hyperventilating blonde. "What's wrong with you, brat? Cold?"

"No, un," Deidara stuttered.

"Something bothering you?"

"No, un."

"Something you want to say?"

"No, un."

"_What_ is it, brat?"

"Nothing." Deidara looked up at the sudden demand. "Serious, Danna, un."

They sat together in comfortable silence, watching the sky turn a light hue of orange and the reddening sun sink lower into the western depths.

"Doesn't it look like an explosion, un?" Deidara suddenly pointed to a particular cluster of clouds resembling a mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb.

Sasori followed Deidara's finger and narrowed his eyes at the sky. "I suppose."

"It's gorgeous, isn't it?"

"Yeah, like you."

Deidara froze, and slowly turned to the expressionless redhead. "Uh, Danna, what?"

"I don't like repeating the things I say."

"I heard it, un."

"Good."

"…do you mean it?"

Sasori gave a soft chuckle. "Do I ever say things that I don't mean?"

"Well, hardly. But I could never be sure, un."

"Did I sound like I was joking?"

"…you never do."

"Then I wasn't… probably."

"_Probably, un?_"

Deidara felt slightly annoyed. What was Sasori pulling here?

"I guess I'll just ask you anyway."

Sasori shifted on the bench until he was facing Deidara, his hands loosely clasped, resting in his thigh.

Deidara held his breath.

"What would you do, if I told you that I've fallen in love with you?"

Deidara was speechless.

"…And you know that I don't lie," Sasori finished simply.

"I…" the blonde continued to gape at the redhead, who was smiling faintly at his dumbstruck—or was it love struck?—expression. "Uh…"

It was one heartbeat of pure bliss, an explosion of feeling, and an overflow of carefully controlled emotions for the both of them.

Sasori leaned in and pressed his lips against the stunned blonde, gently tangling his fingers in the honey colored strands, the way Deidara had ruffled Sasori's hair so many years back.

When he pulled back, Deidara's face matched the ripening sunset.

"D…Danna!?"

"Simply, converting words into action," Sasori answered Deidara's unasked question smoothly, and stood up. "Think about it, brat."

"Oi, _Sasori_!"

But all that was left was the echo of the redhead's low, throaty laugh.

When Deidara heard that Sasori had been accepted into a topnotch art college in another country, his heart sank, it sank lower, beneath even the ocean floors.

"Danna, you're going?"

"Of course." Sasori was packing, and Deidara was helping him. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Oh."

Sasori paused and looked up at the dejected expression on the person he probably cared about more than his own self. "Why the long face, brat?"

He leaned in to kiss Deidara, and when he pulled away, he found that his cheeks were streaked wet with tears that weren't his own.

"I think I'm going to miss you, un."

"You'd better," Sasori said, attempting an awkward joke, which probably made things even worse.

"What time's your flight?"

"It's a midnight plane. So you don't have to send me off. I don't appreciate you walking around so late at night."

"I'm not a kid, Danna."

"You're a _brat_, and I said no."

Deidara sighed. Sasori didn't demand he stay at home, and he knew he wouldn't protest if Deidara insisted to come alone. But he knew it was because Sasori cared, and he didn't want the last effort Sasori tried at caring for him to go to waste.

"You won't forget me right, un?"

Sasori had to stop himself from choking on his water. "Brat? You say the most ridiculous things."

"Had to make sure, un."

"I won't."

Suddenly, something was pushed into his palm and Sasori looked down at a figurine that was a perfect clone of himself. Red hair, brown eyes, a bored expression, holding a tiny thing that looked like a mini puppet in his hardened clay hand.

"I made this when you were in the next town," Deidara said, looking down. "Uhm, I made it when I was a little kid, un. So… it's not perfect, but. You can have it."

Sasori felt oddly touched, a feeling he couldn't place bubbling up within in and he walked over to Deidara in two long strides, wrapping him in a hug. "Thanks, Deidara."

Said blonde smiled. "No problem, un."

At the terminal, Sasori was not tolerating the robotic sound of the announcements over the speakers well, broadcasting flight numbers and lost passports.

When his flight was called to boarding, he walked slowly to the flight attendant and showed her his ticket. When he shoved the ticket back into his pocket, his hand brushed against something and he took it out. It was the figurine of himself that Deidara had given him.

_That brat is messing with my mind_… Like an explosive that was embedded into Sasori, with no warning as to when it would blow up.

He walked to his seat and dropped into it, closing his eyes, breathing out in exasperation.

It was midnight.

Deidara stood in the park by himself, at the very bench where Sasori had first confessed. He remembered the way his heart pounded in his chest.

He wouldn't cry. Of course not, he was a _grown_ teenager. He was about to go to college. He was _not_ going to sob like a little brat.

_Brat…_

Deidara gave a wry smile at the sliver of crescent moon in the otherwise velvety dark sky.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Deidara whirled around, shock coursing through his veins, making his heart accelerate and mind spin. "What—?"

Rusty red hair more beautiful than autumn leaves; deep brown eyes warmer than hot chocolate; and pale skin glistening with what seemed like perspiration.

"S…Sasori?"

"Hey," Sasori said softly.

Deidara subconsciously realized that Sasori had been running, and that his bag was on the ground beside him, as if he had just dropped it there without a second thought.

"What are you… doing, un?"

"Kissing you," Sasori answered, and without wasting any more seconds, he strode up to the blonde and pulled him in.

Dizzy and in disbelief, Deidara's hold on Sasori's shirt tightened. "Danna?"

"Shut up, brat. I'm recovering from my withdrawal symptoms."

"Huh?" Deidara let out a short laugh. "Your sense of humor just…really isn't there, un."

"Answer me." Sasori's eyes speared right through Deidara's electric blue orbs, holding his gaze prisoner. "Will you be mine, forever?"

Forever? That word was definitely not one of Deidara's favorite words, but he liked the sound of it tumbling from Sasori's lips.

"Danna…" he whispered, his breath hitching. "Yes." He looked up and said with more certainty, "_yes_."

Sasori had never experienced real happiness, but right now he knew what it was—how it felt like. He knew it so surely it was etched into his very soul.

He knew it as surely as he knew how he didn't mind spending the rest of his eternity with a potential explosive.

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**A/N: This is the first happy ending i have written in a while... Ah, the feeling of satisfaction to see the destined pair end up together instead of a tragedy that will leave you depressed for ages. Maybe i suck at happy endings. Please review, anyway! :D Really appreciate it. Your reviews are what keep me going (: okay? thanks (:**


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